NCID-2544
Lauren Irwin
Assistant Professor of Higher Education
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Education/Degree:
1 Higher Education & Student Affairs Higher Education & Student Affairs Higher Education & Student Affairs Higher Education & Student Affairs (University of Iowa)
About
Lauren Irwin is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her Ph.D. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from the University of Iowa, completed her master's in Student Affairs Administration at Michigan State University, and earned a bachelor's degree at UCLA. Lauren’s scholarship on whiteness and racialization has been published in some of the top outlets in the field, including the American Educational Research Journal, the Review of Higher Education, the Journal of College Student Development, and the Handbook of Higher Education, among others. As a former student affairs professional with experience across functional areas, Lauren is committed to engaging in scholarship that informs equitable and inclusive student affairs practice.
Current Work
Lauren's research agenda has two strands: (1) promoting racial justice by critically examining whiteness and racialization in higher education; and (2) pursuing equity and inclusion in college student leadership education efforts. Primarily, Lauren uses critical qualitative methods, including case study methodology and critical discourse analysis, to examine inequities across higher education contexts. Recently, Lauren conducted a critical comparative case study, guided by the theory of racialized organizations, to examine how campus contexts racialize student leadership education efforts in ways that reinforce and/or challenge whiteness. This project offers concrete strategies for pursuing equity in leadership education and student affairs practice, including pedagogy, content, program design and resource allocation.
Research Area Keyword(s)
whiteness, racialized organizations, student leadership education, student affairs, critical qualitative research